Monday, October 22, 2007
GodTube in the LA Times
David Sarno wrote an interesting piece appearing in yesterday's LA Times, called Linking into the market for ministry that questions the growing impact and development of the GodTube for the online Christian market. Yours truly is also quoted, though I would clarify that when I was interview I stated that SOME, but not all people, find that the internet offers "more sustained and satisfying personal interaction". At this point it is accurate and safe to say the internet still serves as a supplement rather than a substitute for offline religious engagement. However I still sense a fear amongst many religious practitioners about this fact. It seems GodTube is responding the idea by providing tools to consciously link religious users online with offline church interaction as well via GodCaster. The article also provides some interesting info and reflection on Muslim use of the internet.
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You write: "At this point it is accurate and safe to say the internet still serves as a supplement rather than a substitute for offline religious engagement. However I still sense a fear amongst many religious practitioners about this fact."
I agree that some religious practitioners perceive religious online activity as a threat, at least here in Europe. However, this probably varies with the denomination, the communication culture of a country, and the diffusion levels of the internet in the general public. The Catholic church exploits the new technologies to the full, the Lutherans (in the Nordic countries) too, as do the Evangelicals. The Latin churches hesitate in comparison.
What surprises me is that arguments used in this anti-technology discours that we heard for the first time with the radio transmissions of church services in the 1950s didn't change too much.
New media such as GodTube and the Muslim and Jew versions of YouTube bring religion to the sphere of new media, which is the new domain of current and future generations. However, I agree that the internet should only be used as a supplement to religious interactions in a physical religious institution. But the church should not ignore what is currently going on in the spheres of religion and new media. The church must embrace this new phenomenon and align itself with it accordingly, perhaps by bringing itself more into the virtual world, so it does not become a lost institution within technological change.
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